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The outbreak of civil war in Jordan vastly complicated efforts to free the hostages from what the guerrillas assured the world was humane captivity. At the same time, the shooting increased the confusion surrounding the negotiations for their release. At one point the International Committee of the Red Cross broke off talks, demanding that the guerrillas provide "more precision as to who was speaking for whom." Once civil war broke out, contacts were broken off completely.
The five governments involved in the negotiating—the U.S., Britain, West Germany, Switzerland and Israel—also added to the confusion. The West Germans once again contemplated trading unilaterally for the release of two citizens by freeing three Arabs imprisoned by Bonn. British Foreign Minister Alec Douglas-Home, anxious to speed up deliberations, interrupted Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban's private visit to England to press for a promise to release more Arab prisoners. The Israelis agreed, among other things, to give up the two Algerian intelligence agents they had been holding. For its part, the U.S., which had dispatched Sixth Fleet ships with 1,500 battle-ready Marines to the Eastern Mediterranean when the planes were skyjacked, added more ships to the task force. Most notably, the helicopter carrier Guam, with combat Marines aboard, sailed from Norfolk naval base to join the fleet.
The Marines' assignment, if events warranted, was to helicopter ashore in Jordan to rescue the 40 members of the U.S. embassy in Amman and any of 350 U.S. citizens living in Jordan, or other foreigners who cared to leave. There was also the possibility, albeit a remote one, of liberating some of the 54 airline hostages. Washington Special Action Group, a crisis committee of State, Defense and intelligence chiefs headed by Henry Kissinger, met twice to draw up contingency plans.
The ostentatious movement of ships and Marines had another purpose. Even as Israeli Premier Golda Meir arrived in the U.S. for conferences with President Nixon (see following story), the Administration was carefully leaking muted warnings of U.S. intervention. The warnings were chiefly designed to dissuade any invasion by Israel, whose paratroopers were already on the alert to jump into Jordan if Iraqi or Syrian troops came to the aid of the guerrillas. However, an Israeli invasion would undoubtedly be met by some sort of Egyptian response.
As the battle developed. Hussein appeared to be faring well without help from the outside—though a helicopter stood by at Al-Hummar Palace just in case, ready to lift him to exile (probably in Iran). At 4:05 on a quiet morning in Amman, barely 24 hours after martial law was imposed, an artillery round shattered the predawn quiet. It was the tocsin for a barrage of fire from both sides, mostly in the dark at shapeless targets.